• Hired along with senior leaders for other functions, tasked with building design team and launching product.

• Built a team of 4 (one junior designer, two senior designers, and a senior UX researcher).

• Initial efforts focused on understanding potential customers, pain points, current workflows, etc. and

progressed into concept testing design solutions and early validation.

• Established team culture and processes, including uses of AI to accelerate design and research workflows.

• Managed a 4 person product design team for RiseSmart, a career coaching platform (iOS, Android, Web) offered in 100+ countries and 28 languages, featuring coach matching + video chat, AI interview practice, concierge services, and more.

• First design leader, built out design practice, including new user research function, sprint-based processes, collaborative rituals (retrospectives and reviews), career development, and design systems.

• Designed and launched a complete redesign of the onboarding experience based on customer journey and retention data, resulting in massively increased conversion across key metrics (2.5x to activation, 25% to 60%).

• Pioneered pre-validation process for design concepts through A/B testing with look-a-like audiences (no-code), deploying business-impact thinking to product development processes across RiseSmart teams.

• Hired to help conceptualize and bring greenfield career development offering to fruition – launching a new line of business with new mobile app, brand and design system.

• Hired as second designer at venture-backed HR tech startup (backed by SoftBank, Greycroft, QED, and more) targeting SMBs with automation, SaaS, and services.

• Developed early prototypes and feature suites in close collaboration with key clients and pilot customers.

• Led embedded user research on usability, design experiments (Maze), and user session monitoring.

• Drove design and product team understanding of HR compliance, including customer cohorting and outcomes across employee onboarding, HR operations, and performance reviews.

• Early designer at management consulting startup with SaaS platform, spun out of Gen. Stan McChrystal consulting group.

• Led an enterprise-wide UX overhaul for SaaS platform used by Fortune 500 companies and top hedge funds including key logos like Comcast, GE, and Third Point.